December/Janurary Skiing in Eastern Europe

Tibulus

Just found out that unlike last Christmas 13 niether my brother or best mate will be coming home for Christmas 14 and New Years.

Looking like Ill be off work from Friday 19th Dec - Monday 5th Jan.

Cabin fever should be ripe by the 27 or 28th of December so thinking this would be a great time to get away for a week skiing.

Looked at Zakopane in Poland before and was recommended Czech Republic by a Polish colleague.

Would most likely book indpendently, Ryanair flight, booking.com etc. Might even just book it for 5 days

Main issue that I have is snow!

Is it too early in the season for skiing in eastern europe?

If I email the resorts this will just resaaure me to secure a booking.

hawkwind23

resorts will be open but no guarantee of snow.
its a wonderful place with some great restaurants and activities , skiing is limited if your all good at it , but a half hours bus will take you to Bialka Tatraskansa and better skiing there.
Nearly all the slopes have good snow machines and night skiing.

if your looking just a few hours skiing and more time socialising then Zakopane be perfect

have you looked at the prices of the accommodation? Xmas week is the dearest and most booked up!
hear the new years party is amazing all the same.

have a look at the like of Bambi Cottage for typical highlander accommodation.

if the mods dont mind , the following website pretty much covers everything in the Zakopane area.

http://www.discoverzakopane.com/skiing.html

ive already booked for Feb for the kids

Tibulus

Cheers for the information.

tech

Hi

I havent been to Zakopane but a few friends have, if you have skied before and can ski, I dont think its for you as the run are very limited. You would ski the place in a day!

Matt_Trakker

tech wrote: »

Hi

I havent been to Zakopane but a few friends have, if you have skied before and can ski, I dont think its for you as the run are very limited. You would ski the place in a day!

Yea, I agree, I have skied there and it was pretty boring....the nightlife was good though.
I live pretty close to it, but when skiing we tend to get out of Poland, Slovakia has better, newer facilities. The facilities here in Poland are quiet old and the queues are massive. However, in Slovakia & Czech it's the same weather and more or less similar heights of mountains so it can also mean no snow.

However, Szczyrk in south Poland is OK, just got a recent facelift.

We had almost zero snow here last year and not much the year before that either.
You'd be far better off going to Italy or Austria....or further east and try Bulgaria/Romania.....I've no experience of either, but apparently it's cheap as chips.....usually a little colder around that time of the year than Poland/Czech/Slovakia too

Tibulus

Matt_Trakker wrote: »

You'd be far better off going to Italy or Austria....or further east and try Bulgaria/Romania.....

This will be our first time skiing so would like to head to one of the Eastern European resorts. No point going to a resort with poor skiing when we know how to ski.

The problem with Romania and Bulgaria is flights.

Matt_Trakker

Tibulus wrote: »

This will be our first time skiing so would like to head to one of the Eastern European resorts. No point going to a resort with poor skiing when we know how to ski.

The problem with Romania and Bulgaria is flights.

Naw, I learned to ski in Austria. It's a far nicer, friendlier place than Poland where the vast majority of people don't speak a word of English.
Plus in Austria, you get an instructor from 10-12, 13-15.00, most places they leave you at lunch time.

Your choice obviously, but living here I can tell you that you'd have a better time in Austria....or Italy, at least you'll have snow.....less queues, more lifts and people who speak English.

hawkwind23

we all learned to ski in Poland , it was ideal , plenty of slopes to suit us and great restaurants to eat in at night

the instructors all spoke perfect English and were all nice and friendly

as to say its not a nice place? thats ridiculous ,Zakopane and the Tatra Mountains are one of the most picturesque places in Europe.

OP , Krakow is easy to get to , £3 gets you a bus direct to Zakopane , the holiday can be easily done in a DIY basis and will be as cheap as you will get

Matt_Trakker

hawkwind23 wrote: »

we all learned to ski in Poland , it was ideal , plenty of slopes to suit us and great restaurants to eat in at night

the instructors all spoke perfect English and were all nice and friendly

as to say its not a nice place? thats ridiculous ,Zakopane and the Tatra Mountains are one of the most picturesque places in Europe.

OP , Krakow is easy to get to , £3 gets you a bus direct to Zakopane , the holiday can be easily done in a DIY basis and will be as cheap as you will get

Err, yea, fairly sure I didn't say it wasn't a nice place....Austria is just waaaay nicer and it's more open to English speakers.
It is however overcrowded and anyone that's even slightly serious about enjoying skiing will tell you not to bother going unless you want a week-long boozy vodka session. Which is grand, if that's what you're into.

And I live about an hour from Zakopane so I do know it pretty well.

Be careful that you don't book it for when the ski jumping is on. Place is like Henry Street on Stephen's Day

Anyway, we're gettin off topic here, even in the OP he said he was recommended Czech.
You can get flights to Ostrava or Brno, Ostrava would be closer to skiing areas....but Czech being a fairly small country, Brno would be ok too.